Health, Wealth and Happiness

The
World Employment Conference of I.L.O. in 1976 defined the five basic
needs as:

Food

Health

Clean
water & sanitation

Education

Shelter

According
to Dale Carnegie (author of "How to Win Friends and Influence
People"), most people want the following: to Dale Carnegie
(author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"),
most people want the following:

Health and the preservation of life

Food

Sleep

Money and the things money will buy

Life in the hereafter

Sexual gratification

The well-being of our children

A feeling of importance

Abraham
Maslow stated that our needs can be divided into 5 groups:

Physiological Needs

Safety Needs

Belonging Needs

Self-Esteem Needs

Self-Actualisation Needs

He
also went on to state that you start at the first need and only once
that is fulfilled do you then think about the second and so on. also
went on to state that you start at the first need and only once
that is fulfilled do you then think about the second and so on.

It
is no surprise that both Dale Carnegie and Abraham Maslow have
mentioned our physical needs of food, sleep, etc. What is surprising
is that both mentioned other needs which are not obviously essential
to biological survival yet they claim them to be vital to human
life. In other words, both claim that human life is somehow a
higher level of existence than that of an animal or plant.

OUR
NEEDS AND THE LEVELS OF EXISTENCE

There
are those who look at the external nature of humanity and see no
difference with the rest of the biological kingdom. And in a sense,
they are right. They will never see any real difference between us
and all other living things if they only look on the outside.

When
we look at the whole world we find that it is divided into four
levels: non-living material and living plants, animals and humans -
with materials at the bottom and humans at the top.

No
one has any difficulty in recognising the difference between a living
plant and one that has died and so fallen to the lowest Level of
Existence, non-living material.

From
plant to animal, there is a similar jump which enables the
typical, fully developed animal to do things that are totally
outside the abilities of the typical, fully developed plant. This
difference is consciousness and it is easy to recognise consciousness
in a dog, a cat or a horse, if only because they can be knocked
unconscious, a condition similar to that of a plant: the processes of
life continue but the animal has lost its higher powers that make it
different to a plant.

Moving
from the animal level to the human level, there are further gains in
additional power. Some people claim that human life is no different
from animal life. In fact, animal rights activists use the argument
that as animals are no lower than people, they deserve the same
rights as people. And it is this argument that puts the whole problem
in a clear light. We talk about humans having rights which allow us
to live our lives as individuals. Yet it is this concept of the
value of the individual that is totally alien to the rest of nature.
So is happiness, sorrow, love, creativity, malice and sadism - all
the things that make human society stand out - which all depend on
the value of the individual who feels them. This is known as
"self-awareness".

PROGRESSIONS

ACTIVITY:
The four Levels of Existence demonstrate certain progressions.
Perhaps the most striking progression is the movement from being
passive to active. At the lowest level, that of non-living matter,
there is pure passivity. A stone is wholly passive, a pure object,
totally dependent on circumstances. It can do nothing, organise
nothing, use nothing. Even radioactive material is totally passive.
A plant is mainly, but not totally passive; it is not a pure object;
there is a certain limited ability of adaption to changing
circumstances: it grows towards the light and extends its roots towards
moisture and nutrients in the soil. A plant is to a small extent
a subject with its own power of doing, organising and using. It can
even be said that there is a suggestion of active intelligence
in plants - though not as active as that of animals.

At
the animal level through the appearance of consciousness there is
a striking shift from passivity to activity. The processes of life
are speeded up and activity becomes more autonomous, as evidenced
by free and often purposeful movement - not merely a gradual
turning towards light but a swift action to obtain food or escape
danger. The power of doing, organising and using is
immeasurably extended; there is evidence of an "inner life"
of happiness and unhappiness, confidence, fear, expectation,
disappointment and so on. Any being with an inner life cannot be a
mere object: they are subjects capable even of treating other beings
as mere objects, as the cat treats a mouse.

At
the human level, there is a subject that says "I" - a
person: another marked change from being passive to active, from
object to subject. To treat a person as if he or she were a mere
object is a perversity, if not a crime. No matter how much a person
may be weighed down and enslaved by circumstances, there is always
the possibility of self-assertion to rise above those same
circumstances.

People
can achieve a measure of self-control over their environment and
thereby their life, using things around them for their own
purposes. There appears to be no limit to our possibilities,
although there are practical limitations which we have to recognise
and respect in our everyday experience.

CAUSALITY:
It is clear that at the level of non-living matter there cannot be
a change of movement without physical cause so there is a very close
linkage between cause and effect. At the level of plant this
chain is more complex: physical causes will have physical effects as
at the lower level (the wind will shake the tree whether it is living
or dead) but certain physical factors act not simply as physical
cause but also as stimulus. The sun's rays stimulate the plant which
causes it to turn towards the sun. Its leaning too much in one
direction causes the roots on the opposite side to grow stronger. At
the animal level, cause and effect becomes still even more complex.
An animal can be pushed around like a stone and can also be
stimulated like a plant. But there is in addition a third factor that
creates change which comes from inside: certain drives,
attractions or compulsions of a totally non-physical kind which have
been called motives. A dog is motivated (and so moved) not simply
by physical forces or stimuli coming from the outside, but also by
forces that definitely come from its "inner space": it
jumps for joy on recognising its master and runs in fear on
recognising its enemy.

At
the animal level, the motivating cause has to be physically present
to be effective. But at the human level there is no such need. The
power of self-awareness adds for us another possibility for the cause
of movement - will, that is, the power to move and act even when
there is no physical compulsion, no physical stimulus and no
motivating force actually present. There is a lot of controversy
about will. How free is will? Nonetheless, despite the contoversy,
it is quite clear that at the human level there is an additional
possibility of the cause of movement - one that does not seem to
exist at any lower level, For example, a person might move to
another place not because present conditions motivates them to do so,
but because they anticipate certain developments in their mind.

While
these additional possibilities - the power of foreknowledge and
with it the power of anticipating future possibilities - are no doubt
possessed, to some degree, by all human beings, it is evident
that they vary greatly and with most of us are very weak.

FREEDOM:
With the progression from passive to active comes the progression
from necessity to freedom. It is easy to see that at the
material/physical level there is nothing but necessity. Non-living
matter is what it is and cannot be anything else; there is no choice,
no possibility of "developing" or in any way changing its
nature due to the absence of any creative principle.

At
the level of non-living matter, there is no "inner space"
where any independent powers could be developed. As we shall see,
"inner space" is the scene of freedom. We know little, if
anything, about the "inner space" of plants, more of that
of animals, and a great deal about the "inner space" of
people - the space of the person, of creativity, of freedom. Inner
space is created by the powers of life, consciousness and
self-awareness; but we only have direct and personal experience of
our own "inner space" and the freedom it gains for us.

Close
observation discloses that most of us, most of the time, behave and
act mechanically, like machines. The specifically human power of
self-awareness is asleep, and the human being acts like an animal -
solely in programmed response to outside influences. Only when we
make use of our power of self-awareness do we climb to the level of a
person; to the level of freedom. At that moment we are living, not
being lived. There are still numerous forces of necessity,
accumulated in the past, which determine our actions; but a small
dent is made, a tiny change of direction is introduced. It may be
virtually unnoticeable, but many moments of self-awareness can
produce many such changes and even turn a given movement into the
opposite of its previous direction. To ask whether the human being
has freedom is like asking whether a person is a millionaire. They
are not, but can become a millionaire by their actions. They can make
it their aim to become rich; similarly, they can make it their aim to
become free. In their inner space they can develop a centre of
strength so that the power of their freedom exceeds that of their
necessity.

UNITY:
The is also a marked and unmistakable progression towards integration
and unity. At the material level, there is no integration.
Non-living matter can be divided and subdivided without loss of
character, simply because at this level there is nothing to lose
above the atomic level of integration. Even at the plant level,
inner unity is so weak that parts of the plant can often be cut off
and will continue to live and develop as separate beings. Animals,
by contrast, are much more highly integrated beings. Seen as a
biological system, the higher animal is a unity, and parts of it
cannot survive separation from the whole. However, there is little
integration on the mental plane; that is to say, even the highest
animal achieves only a very modest level of mind and thought.

Humans
have obviously much more inner unity than any being below us,
although integration, as modern psychology recognises, is not
guaranteed to us at birth and remains one of our major tasks. As a
biological system, we are most harmoniously integrated; but on the
mental plane, integration is less perfect but is capable of
considerable improvement through training and effort. However, as
a person - a being with the power of self-awareness - we are
generally so poorly integrated that we experience ourselves as an
assembly of many different personalities, each saying "I".

Total
integration requires the creation of an inner unity which is a
centre of strength and freedom, so that the being ceases to be a
mere object acted upon by outside forces and becomes a subject acting
from its own inner space into the space outside ourselves. It is
very clear that "higher" always means and implies "more
inner", "more interior", "deeper", "more
intimate"; while "lower" means and implies "more
outer", "more external", "shallower", "less
intimate". This connection can be found in many languages,
perhaps in all of them.

INVISIBILITY:
The more "interior" a thing is, the less visible it is
likely to be. The progression from visibility to invisibility is
just another aspect of the Levels of Existence. Obviously the

terms
"visibility" and "invisibility" refer not just to
the visual sense but to all other forms of external observation. The
powers of life, consciousness and self-awareness that come into focus
as we review the four Levels of Existence are all wholly invisible:
without colour, sound, "skin", taste, smell or weight.
Nevertheless, who would deny that they are what we are mainly
interested in? When we buy a packet of seeds our main interest is
that the contents should be alive not dead, and an unconscious cat,
even though still alive, is not a real cat for me until it has
gained consciousness and
acts like a cat.

We
can all see another person's body directly. We see the lips moving,
the eyes opening and shutting, the lines of the mouth and face
changing and the body expressing itself as a whole in action. But the
person themselves is invisible. If the invisible side of people
were as easily seen as the visible side, we would live within a
completely different humanity. But as it is and as we are, we live
within a humanity of appearances. All our thoughts, emotions,
feelings, imaginations, reveries, dreams and fantasies are
invisible. All that belongs to our scheming, planning, secrets and
ambitions, all our hopes, fears, doubts, perplexities, affections,
speculations, ponderings, uncertainties, desires, longings,
appetites, sensations, dislikes and likes, aversions, attractions,
loves and hates are invisible. They make up "ourselves".
We do not grasp that we are invisible. We do not realise that we are
in a world of invisible people. So, reality is divided into the
external world in
which things are visible, that is directly accessible to our senses;
and the "inner space" where things are invisible and are
not directly accessible to us (except in the case of ourselves). We
do not
understand that life is really a drama between the visible and
invisible.

The
progressive movement from being passive to active, which we observe
when reviewing the four Levels of Existence, is striking but not
complete. A large weight of passiveness remains even in the most
powerful and independent human being; while he is undoubtedly a
subject, he remains in many respects an object - dependent upon and
pushed around by circumstances. Aware of this, humanity has always
used their imagination or intuitive powers to complete the process -
to suggest the existence a Being who is completely active, powerful
and independent; a person above all human persons, above all
circumstances and situations, in no way an object but entirely in
control of everything: a personal God, the "Unmoved Mover".
The four Levels of Existence are thus seen as pointing to the
invisible existence of a Level (or Levels) of Existence above the
Human.

It
is possible to imagine a Level of Existence beyond the human where
they would exist in perfection. Perfect foreknowledge of the future
would therefore be considered a divine attribute, associated with
perfect freedom of movement and perfect freedom from being passive.
The progression from physical cause to stimulus to motive and finally
to will would then be completed by a perfection of will capable of
overriding all the causative forces that operate at the four Levels
of Existence known to us.

It
is possible to continue this line of thought and so imagine a
perfect being who is always and invariably exercising their power of
self-awareness (which is the power of freedom) to the fullest
degree, unmoved by any necessity. This would be a Divine Being, an
almighty and total power, a perfect unity.

The
progression from the wholly visible material to the largely invisible
person can be taken as a pointer towards Levels of Existence above us
which would be totally invisible to our senses, just as there is
total visibility at the other end of the scale, the level of
minerals. We need not be surprised that most people throughout most
of human history implicitly believed in the reality of this
projection; they have always claimed that, just as we can learn
to "see" into the invisibility of the persons around us,
so we can develop abilities to "see" totally invisible
beings existing at levels
above us.

SELF-ACTIVATION

Nature
has left humanity incomplete. In the words of Captain Kirk in the
episode of "Star Trek" called "I, Mudd", people
need to strive to be human in order to be people.

Self-activation
is about focus, focus of my entire being to one end: being the very
best me I can be.

"What
a piece of work is a person! How noble in reason! How infinite in
faculty!" Because our power of self-awareness is limitless, our
potential is infinite - it is not narrowly determined, confined or
programmed. Werner Jaeger expressed a profound truth in the
statement that, once a human potentiality is realised, it exists.
The greatest human achievments define humanity - not the common ones,
not the average behaviour or performance and certainly not anything
that can be derived from the observation of animals.

DR
CATHERINE ROBERTS: "All [people] cannot be outstanding yet all
[people], through knowledge of superior humanness, could know what it
means to be a human being and that they too have a contribution to
make. It is magnificent to become as human [as you] are able. And
it requires no help from science. In addition, the very act of
realising [your] potentialities might constitute an advance over what
has gone before."

"This
open-endedness" is the wonderful result of the specifically
human power of self-awareness which (as distinct from the powers of
life and consciousness) have nothing automatic or mechanical about
them. Essentially, the powers of self-awareness are a limitless
capability rather than an ability. They have to be developed and
"realised" by each human individual if we are to become
truly human, that is to say, a person.

People
recognised that the insides of a human looked remarkably like that of
an animal. They also recognised that humans and animals were
distinctly different. Humans thought, planned, talked, made laws
and fought wars. Animals, on the other hand, could be useful to
humans, providing them with commodities like food and clothing or
providing them with amusement as pets. Animals could even be
dangerous. However, they could not, threaten the supremacy of
Homo sapiens as thinkers, talkers and planners. If the insides of
humans and animals were so similar, what accounted for human
superiority?

Along
with human self-awareness comes a feeling of special insight into the
control of our behaviour. We feel that we are free to decide, to do
as we want - in other words, we feel like we have a will. We
distinguish between automatic, reflexive behaviours and those that we
choose to perform. Even when we find ourselves compulsively doing
something we do not wish to do (smoking, being critical to others, or
going out when we mean to study), we interpret these behaviours as
resulting from failures of will: if we would just try harder, we
could control our behaviour.

The
desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief
distinguishing differences between mankind and the animals. It is
what Freud calls "the desire to be great". It is what
Dewey calls "the desire to be important". Lincoln once
began a letter by saying: "Everybody likes a compliment".
William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is
the craving to be appreciated". Note that he didn't speak of
the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing"
to be appreciated. He said the "craving" to be
appreciated. Here is a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger; and
the rare person who honestly satisfies this heart-hunger will hold
people in the palm of his hand and "even the undertaker will be
sorry when he dies".

If
our ancestors hadn't had this burning desire to feel important,
civilisation would have been impossible. Without it, we should have
been just about like the animals. It was this desire for a

feeling
of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery
clerk to study some law books that he found in the bottom of a barrel
of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have
probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln. It was
this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dickens to
write his immortal novels. This desire inspired Sir Christopher
Wren to design his symphonies in stone. This desire made Rockefeller
amass millions that he never spent!

LIFE
AND HUMAN LIFE

Life
is a strange word with many meanings but with little meaning for so
many people who live it.

Some
people claim that human life is no different from animal life. In
fact, animal rights activists use the argument that as animals are
no lower than people, they deserve the same rights as people. And
it is this argument thats puts the whole problem in a clear light.
We talk about humans having rights which allow us to live our lives
as individuals. Yet it is this concept of the value of the individual
that is totally alien to the rest of nature. So is happiness, sorrow,
love, creativity, malice and sadism - all the things that make human
society stand out - which all depend on the value of the individual
who feels them.

Sadly,
many peoples' lives lack happiness, creativity and a sense of
achievement. Their lives resemble those of animals rather than of
people. They are barely alive. They are just existing, living out
routines and waiting for death.

Our
lives both affect other lives and are affected by other lives. Each
member of the human race has enormous potential to be and do many
things. Each one of us has an incredible potential for life because
of how we have been designed. Our body is brilliantly formed but the
most exciting part has to be the nervous system and, in particular,
the brain. The greatest supercomputers produced have trouble doing
tasks that any average two year-old would find boringly easy. The
two things that the majority of us do every day and take for granted
(vision and language recognition which you are using to read this)
scares the pants off of every computer going. There is much talk in
computer circles nowadays about artificial intelligence. But quite
frankly, this is nonsense at the moment because these computers
are just not big enough or powerful enough to start imitating us.
This human potential may be limited or developed by our surroundings.
(Just think of the number of "supercomputers" being
executed every day by hunger, abortion and illness just because of
their surroundings!) The most important part of our surroundings is
other people. And this is the real basis of all discussion on human
freedoms: how should we limit or develop each other's potential?

The
total freedom of life is possible through security and personal
development by an educational system that maintains equal standards
for all and encourages free expression providing that it does not
reduce someone else's freedom.